June 17, 2010

June 14, 2010

My one and only chaperoning gig this year...acting as one of the adults on the first grade trip to Maymont. I wasn't sure what to expect - would we be inspecting the animals, visiting the nature center? Picnicking on the hillside? The experience was most like a hike, keeping 25 kids (in Ms. Mallory's class...there were at least two other classes in the park, too) moving from Italian garden to Japanese garden, past the bears, through the wild birds, up the hill to the petting zoo, and right through to the trees on the other side, where we lunched and then hopped back on the buses.

April 14, 2010

I originally met Carolina through the local chapter of Attachment Parenting International and re-met her through Sabot (Griff and her son Quin were in the Garden Room in 2006-7 together) and then again through the Richmond Natural and Attached Parenting boards/group. She has started a nature club through NAP and every now and then we manage to make it to a meeting. Today, the group got together at Larus Park, which is a little wild patch of forest with dirt paths that's tucked between the neighborhood where my in-laws are moving and the campus for Sabot at Stony Point.

(Oh, wait - I just searched the blog and realized that I probably haven't mentioned (bizarrely) that Dan's parents are building a house in James River Crossing, a new neighborhood on the Southside. Excepting the 3 years in which the Huguenot bridge will be closed, they'll be about 15 minutes away from us. They're keeping their St. Louis house for the time being and anticipate splitting their time between there and here. We're pretty psyched about it.)

So, Larus Park: VERY cool. Very wild, very shady, very green. If you walk about a mile, you reach a little creek. My understanding is that the creek can be reached more quickly from the Sabot campus.

Aside from all three kids getting terrorized by over-enthusiastic dogs who weren't on leashes (READ THE SIGNS, PEOPLE), we had a great time. Xander and Reese explored the banks of the creek, Griff hung out with Quin and Scott, and I was in heaven trying to photograph a million and one tiny inchworms. They were everywhere.

April 08, 2010

First river adventure of the year! I thought it might be a nice day to have a toddler-friendly wade in the shallower parts of the James - namely, the creek-like portion that splits off and runs South of 42nd Street Island. I put out the call, attracted a couple of friends (Johannah, Sara K), and headed out. Well, OOPS. The sleepy July creek is more of a mountain river at this time of year. Fast-flowing, full, without many places to sit or footholds/handholds. This was a little on the stressful side for parents of 2 y/os, but everybody had fun. Griff LOVED getting to see Mia and finding deep water (exhibit A, above). I enjoyed hanging out with other adults in those brief moments when I wasn't scrambling to save Xander's life or spot him when he wanted to cross the river on a log. Reese is fairly independent, especially since he likes to stick to the rocks. Nice to see how much more laid-back Sara can be with three kids who are older (3, 6, 13 compared to my 2, 4, 7). My time is coming, right? And until then, her son TJ may just be a great babysitter...

April 02, 2010

Richmond's art community has a monthly "First Fridays" artwalk that includes lots of open galleries, gallery openings, performances, etc. I've considered going many times but so far have never actually gone. This time around, Amy was looking for somebody to go with and two of our friends - Heidi Field-Alvarez and Anna Golden - had work on display / for sale, so it was the perfect time to go.

Heidi was holding an opening at Main Art. I believe this is her first show. Her work incorporates a lot of creative use of textiles, such as quilted paintings. Anne of Cleves (2008-2009, below left), is one such example. Her floating embroidery pieces like Leda (2009, below right) attracted a lot of attention, as viewers went back for second, third, and fourth looks.

A couple of miles away, Gallery 5 was celebrating their 5th anniversary with an exhibit of photographs documenting the venue's history. Neither of us had ever been there before, and from the looks of the photos, we've been missing out! An anniversary silent auction kicked off that night, including Anna's 1 Story pieces. Check out her blog to read about them.

Amy examining the photographic history of Gallery 5

Once outside again, we had planned to visit another gallery or two, but discovered a conclave of fire spinners performing in celebration of the 145th anniversary of the burning of Richmond. (Must add here: I love living in the capital of the Confederacy. Really, I'm serious, no irony.) They completely captured our attention and we spent nearly two hours watching them. Well, I was watching mostly through my viewfinder - can you blame me?

There was fire spinning and fire hula hooping and belly dancing and fire eating and it was so, so, so incredible. Screw roller derby, I need to learn to play with fire.

Oh, and also, you never know whose butt you're going to end up checking out. The compelling fire spinner/eater in hot skinny pants whom Amy and I ended up referring to as The Mad Hatter turned out to be a guy I know from high school. I didn't realize it until somebody tagged him in my Facebook photos. He has lost not a drop of charisma since then. (Yes, Dan knows I was leching over the guy, and I know who he scopes, even score, we're married but not blind.)

All in all, fantastic night. Good friends, great art, exciting performances, photo opportunities, and new contacts. I'm up for May!

March 25, 2010

Won't be able to call it 'kropping for much longer. The week of April 10th our favorite location will close down for a week to change over to Martin's branding. I'm not sure what we'll be calling it then, if anything. Supposedly they're installing brighter lights, which makes me wonder, what will make them different from Kroger? And why would I shop at Martin's when Kroger is right across the street?

Anyway, on this particular Thursday morning I made the dicey call of attempting a "quick" shopping trip with two two-year-olds. We spent a fair bit of time inspecting the "monsters".

Xander told me, "Xander and Lukie are scaried of monsters."

The monsters simply went about their business.

I asked Xander later about the lobsters. It turns out he actually pronounces "lobsters" as "monsters." I'm uncertain whether he thinks they're really called monsters or if he just can't pronounce lobsters.

One thing everybody can pronounce: TREAT. Both boys agreed that the round yeast donut with chocolate drizzled on it looked delicious. We opted for vanilla/strawberry milk, instead. The two-year-olds even helped me to select bananas and bread, and put all the items in the cart on the conveyor belt at checkout, which more than made up for the crazy zigzag chase around the store prior to paying for our groceries.

March 05, 2010

A group of work trucks has been traveling around our neighborhood, first at one corner, then at another, doing something mysterious that has to do with manholes. Ruby hazarded a guess that it has to do with the pipes under the street, the ones that are for "dirty water from the sink and stuff from the toilet".

It was our corner's turn this afternoon. The closest manhole is right in front of the neighbors catercorner from us (the bus stop house). There was a guy sitting on the tailgate of a truck pulled up next to the open hole, so I put shoes on me & Xander and headed on over to ask what they were doing. I always feel odd doing that, it feels slightly pushy and socially inappropriate, but it hurts nobody and we can get actual interesting and educational information rather than continuing to make uninformed guesses, right? So, the guy told me that they are relining the pipes under the street (not clear on if they're freshwater or wastewater, forgot to ask). They mix up some kind of epoxy and send it through the pipes from one street corner to the next, and it hardens into a thin fiberglass lining in the pipe.

I had wondered how 80-plus-year-old iron pipes were still functional. Now I know!

March 03, 2010

Ruby, worn out at the end of a long Pennies in Protest organizational meeting, accuses her mother of being "mean to Haiti" after her 9,000,000th petition for donations to her collection is denied (many of the previous petitions were responded to generously).

I am WAY far behind on posts - despite whatever the date header up there says, it is actually March 13th and I have just updated blog entries as far back as Feb 14th, and still have everything after this one to go. The last week's worth of activism included state education budget protests, a strongly-but-kindly worded letter to delegate Bob Marshall, and then an organized counterprotest effort against Westboro Baptist Church.

You can read about the incredible Pennies in Protest community effort here:

I am SO AMAZINGLY GRATEFUL to the THOUSANDS of people - literally, thousands - who supported this in one way or another. Parents talked to their kids about hatred, kindness, and tolerance. Friends posted links and talked PiP up to other friends. Donations poured in beyond our wildest dreams. We thought this would be a small collection among a few friends. Hey, maybe if we were really lucky, a few other people would join and - haha - maybe we could reach $1K, wouldn't that be cool? We were not at all prepared for 2,000+ Facebook followers, buzz all over Twitter and Richmond, media attention extending outside Virginia, and, get this: over $14,000 in contributions made either directly to our site, handed to us in person, or donated to local organizations on behalf of PiP.

What is far, far better than that (although the money will do a lot of good in Richmond!) is that we stood up to bullies. Did the bullies like the attention? You betcha. I don't care. I'm not interested in the glee of hateful people. I do care about the hundreds of people who stood shoulder to shoulder with our local Jewish and LGBTQ communities. I care about the notes we received from them about Rabbis watching the Facebook numbers growing, and about the way people whose cultural predecessors and/or relatives were slaughtered in the Holocaust felt love and support from their community in the face of extreme prejudice. I care about the huge crowd of happy faces at VCU, proud of their own sexuality, whatever it may be. I care about the teenagers at Hermitage High School who saw that although four people showed up to tell them they're going to burn in hell,

Four friends, social media, five days. Nobody can ever tell me that one person can't make a difference. Every single person who participated in this outpouring of kindness is one person who knew another single person. I don't consider myself to be terribly popular or well-connected, but look how this thing spread outward from us, and how eager people are to DO SOMETHING! Richmond and friends of Richmond, you are wonderful.

..but somebody asked me about the personal side of things, how this whole thing got started. For me, it started from the feeling that I haven't been taking enough interest in social activism. I frequently disagree with something but apathy or low energy or poor organization or procrastination prevent me from writing a letter, attending a protest, volunteering for worthy organizations, etc. I believe in nonviolence, which means more than simply physical nonviolence. I believe in standing up for what is morally right, and my own moral code tells me that one of the most basic aspects of being a good person is defending the rights of other people - their bodily integrity, their autonomy, and also engaging in respectful discourse rather than banning expression or engaging in activities based in intolerance and ignorance.

I have never, that I can remember, participated in a protest rally until the one last week at the General Assembly Building. Economic times are tough, but state legislators are protecting their corporate buddies and slashing funding for the arts and education. I had hired a sitter for some alone time during Dan's work weekend, and decided to use that time to attend the rally. It felt like the responsible choice and I am really proud to have added one more person to that effort.

Riding that sense of responsibility and thinking about what I want to model for my children, I felt the need to do something when in one week, our governor wiped sexual orientation from an executive order listing factors that may not be used to discriminate against people in the workplace, and then the crazy Westboro Baptist Church was about to roll into town. I am ANGRY that anybody, anywhere would think that a person is less than fully human and fully deserving of respect and protection under the law for something as idiotic as who they're attracted to. It is equally enraging to me that religion is used to discriminate both for and against people. Religious language should not be included in the law (as it often is in Virginia) and religious belief should not result in a person being persecuted (as it does for WBC). This is INSANE, it's inhumane, and it would be irresponsible for me to sit at home and think dark thoughts about right-wing legislators and religious nut jobs.

On Thursday night, after learning of the planned WBC visit, three of my friends and I found ourselves on Facebook and Twitter at the same time, discussing back and forth how heartsick their message of hatred caused us to feel and our need to react in a positive, community-building way. We disagreed on what was best - absurdist counterprotest signs or love messages? Personal preference or behind-the-scenes work? Address the WBC picketers or address the rest of the community? Raise money? Acts of kindness around the community? We agreed that sitting on our thumbs was not an option. A friend of Sarah's linked her to an article about his synagogue in Manhattan and the pledge drive they ran in response to a WBC protest there. Genius. Maybe we could do something on a smaller scale? On Friday morning, Sarah made a site and Facebook page, Sara named our fledgling group, Patience and I got to work on the social media blitz. Sarah works in PR and has the knowledge and the resources to go with it, and drafted a press release and sent it to something like 3,000 media outlets. We contacted organizers of direct protests, we talked to the organizations being picketed.

By Friday night we had already raised over $1,000. Saturday and Sunday were a blur of phone calls, tweets, emails, and a meeting at my house. The numbers hit a lull on Sunday morning but then kept climbing steadily. Monday came. The press started calling. Donations were pouring in. Sarah and I did local news interviews and she interviewed with radio stations here and in Los Angeles. The word was spreading, and the coolest thing was how much ownership everybody was feeling! The word "we" was everywhere, people felt so empowered to be able to take their sense of revulsion at what the WBC was doing and turn it into support for their community. Everybody was watching the numbers, talking about Tuesday. It was AMAZING.

Tuesday hit hard, and I still can't really put it all into words, except this: the WBC people disgust me but gave me a lot of insight into their particular kind of fundamentalism and also strengthened my resolve to raise compassionate children. And the strength of my local community is something beautiful to see. I watched a man who survived the holocaust stride purposefully up to the picketers and invite them into his museum to see a picture of him lined up for selection for execution. I heard him respond with conviction and patience to their taunts and their praise of history's genocidal leaders. He and the people surrounding him that day give me hope. The out-and-proud kids at VCU and at Hermitage give me hope as well. NOTHING like this was happening two decades ago when I was their age. Today we stand up to the WBC. Tomorrow we stand up to the more insidious everyday bullies like Governor McDonnell and Ken Cuccinelli. I hope Richmond will say YES to the challenge in this RTD editorial. I know we have it in us.

This is long and rambly and I'm clearly still processing (keep in mind it's back-dated, I'm writing on March 13th). If you came along with us on this journey, I'd love to hear what you're thinking and feeling, and how you're working for justice in your own community.